Prior art's use of trichothecene has been limited to cytotoxic doses for treating cancer and dates back to the early 1980s. Anguidine, a simple trichothecene, was administered in cytotoxic doses, however its use was abandoned after Phase II results showed overall tumor response rate was low and there was considerable hematologic toxicity. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,744,981 and 4,906,452 embody the direction prior art took to solve the systemic toxicity problem caused by trichothecene's lack of specificity in cellular internalization and blood insolubility; they proposed using conjugates of trichothecene with monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies to selectively deliver the toxin to tumors and proposed glycosylation of trichothecenes to increase blood solubility. Applicant took an exactly opposite approach to prior art and demonstrated how certain trichothecenes could be used unconjugated and unglycosylated to treat tumors by reversing the direction of administration from tissue to blood (interstitial perfusion), dispersing the trichothecenes between the intercellular spaces and then using the gap junction transport system to cleanly localize the trichothecene in the tumor, for which applicant was granted U.S. Pat. No. 6,342,520.
In the present invention, applicant uses inhalation to achieve the novel tissue side administration method, without inducing systemic toxicity. Applicant has also extended the utility of trichothecenes by employing both cytotoxic and toxic dose levels to provide a novel method of chemical debridement of over proliferated lung tissue.